


Heavy Rain

by bereftofataraxia



Category: Battle Royale - Takami Koushun
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Writing practice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:39:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7230352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bereftofataraxia/pseuds/bereftofataraxia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game made her realise just how alone she was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy Rain

**Author's Note:**

> This is just me practicing my writing; I haven't written in eons and it sucks. Everything is pretty much the same as in the book.

"purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro

languescit moriens lassove papavera collo

demisere caput pluvia cum forte gravantur." [1]

 

For for the first time since the game had started, Yoshimi felt relieved.

"Yoji" she gasped, "Yoji, Yoji!"

 

When he spotted her he said nothing, but pulled her into a tight embrace. His lips ghosted her forehead, her nose, her cheek. And all at once, she was back at home.

The bustle of a city that was familiar to Yoshimi in a way that her parents never were.

The taste of strawberry shortcake, the thrill of sharing a fork for the first time, the way Yoji gazed at her and the way she gazed right back.

And the first time they'd kissed, on New Year's. It was so sweet, so gentle.

 

Just as he was kissing her right now.

He was never rough, never forceful. Not like the older men, their confident masculinity encouraging them as they greedily took whatever they wanted.

She enjoyed herself a while longer, content with holding and being held close while she still could. The daydream, however, was fading fast.

 

Yoji pulled back before she was ready to let go.

"You're safe, I knew you'd be"

She giggled. "You sure do have a lot of faith in me."

He smirked, "Well, you've never given me a reason to doubt you."

 

She tried to pull him close again, but he put his hands on her shoulders.

"We really need to get going." he warned, eyes darting to the small houses surrounding them. "Can you fire a gun?"

"Never tried," she shrugged, handing it over, "It'd be safer if you took it."

She didn't think twice about passing on a weapon of potential destruction to her partner.

 

And suddenly, the muzzle was pointed between her eyes.

 

"Yoji?"

 

The once gentle and loving face had given way, and it was now contorted into a harsh sneer.

"Get the fuck away from me."

 

"Yoji?" she repeated again. She wasn't sure she could believe any of her five senses. Not even the one telling to follow his instruction and get the hell away from whatever her Yoji had become.

 

"You heard me, bitch. Fucking scram before I shoot this thing."

 

"I don't understand, Yoji. What's wrong? What did I do?" She weakly hoped that he was joking round.

 

He laughed a hollow, humourless laugh. "You made me trust you, that's what you fucking did."

 

Yoshimi's thoughts were flooding through her mind like a violent stream. She still didn't understand what she'd done and Yoji's words were hacking at her like he was butcher with his stock.

 

"I know you're a _slut._ Everyone knows. I can't believe I put up with you for this long."

And, just as Yoji had helped her to rebuild herself when she was spiralling into darkness, he shoved her back into the murky black, all their shared memories crumbling around her.

"...Y..Yoji..no....I...."

 

"Spare me the bullcrap. I know all about how you fucked that guy old enough to be your father. And those times you were arrested. But were you satisfied with being a fucking prostitute and criminal? No! You had to go and try to fucking trick me into thinking you loved me. You fucking _fake._ "

 

Prostitute. Criminal. **Fake**.

 

"No, Yoji please, I can explain. Please, just-"

"SHUT UP"

 

Yoshimi was suddenly hyper-aware of the gun being brandished towards her.

"Please, _please_ just calm down. We can talk this out." she tried.

No reply left Yoji's mouth, but he didn't object so she carried on.

 

"I swear, I stopped doing all that. I...I wanted to be good to you, Yoji. I would never...I would never trick you."

Impulsively, she started towards him, arms reaching for his embrace.

 

Yoji quickly dodged her and shoved her bodily to the floor.

"What the hell you doing? Trying to fucking trick me again? Kill me while you have the chance? I'll fucking kill you!"

 

Now the gaping muzzle was against her forehead.

She thought of her time with Yoji. The day he called her 'cute' when she accidently got ice-cream on her nose. When he had traded his token with hers when he got a lucky one and she didn't The way he motivated her to turn her life around, just by being there.

A wave of calm washed over her. It may have all been an illusion, but at the very least it was a beautiful one.

"Thank you, Yoji." She smiled, defeated but at peace. "I was so happy being with you. Shoot me, it's okay."

Her hand reached out to trace his face one final time. The violence that had appeared so suddenly upon his features smoothed out and he looked almost as he had the first time they had met. So young. So pure.

And where anger had flashed in his eyes, there was now a different emotion. It looked like remorse; a painful sorrow beneath the surface.

"Y...Yoshimi?"

 

Hearing her name croaked out so brokenly, tears broke out of Yoshimi's face and she sobbed uncontrollably.

 

**TUNK.**

 

The noise was almost pleasant, if not for the sound of a bullet ripping out of its confines at the same time.

Yoshimi computed that Yoji had shot the gun only after his body had already fallen onto hers. Even after that it took her a moment to scream.

 

The muzzle had been pointed away from her, the bullet had hit the ground next to her. Yoji hadn't been trying to hit her. It had just been a reflex.

She tried to push his heavy weight off her, only to find her hands covered in something sticky.

 

Suddenly, Yoji's body was lifted off her, and Yoshimi's blood ran both cold, and hot with anger. Mitsuko, leader of the gang she had been part of.

She turned to look at her lover's body but nothing could have prepared her.

 

A sickle, an item fairly unfamiliar to a city girl like Yoshimi, was sticking out of his head. The curved end had buried itself into his skull and blood was escaping around it. It almost looked fake, like a cheap, dress-up shop prank.

Mitsuko had stooped to retrieve first the gun, and then her weapon, grabbing the handle and yanking impatiently. Yoji's head jerked but the weapon was too firmly lodged. When the other girl started to shake it up and down to free it, spraying up blood from the gory head-wound, Yoshimi screamed.

"STOP IT!"

 

She shoved Mitsuko away from Yoji's corpse.

"You're too cruel." She sobbed. "Why would you do that? WHY? TELL ME!"

She shielded his body with her own, sickle still remaining trapped. Her whole world was once again crumbling around her, and the aching pain for her only love was tearing her apart from the inside until she felt completely hollow.

 

"He was going to shoot you. I saved your life" Mitsuko replied, calmly.

"No he wasn't. He had just....I had just...made him understand. He wasn't going to shoot me. He-"

 

The gun fired for a second time.

 

Yoshimi only felt a moment of pain between her eyes before it was all over.

The force of the bullet had pushed her body back, and she flopped down onto her lover, finally together.

 

 

Mitsuko sighed. "She would've made a good shield."

She glanced briefly at the body of her 'friend'. The back of her head had completely caved in and was leaking both blood and bits of jelly-like brain. Her face was permanently etched in a look of shock, her mouth gaping and dripping blood.

 

"I believed you." Mitsuko mused.

She reached down once again for her sickle and whispered into the dead girl's ear.

"I shot him because I thought that he _wasn't_ going to shoot you."

 

 

 

 [2] "tum super exanimum sese proiecit amicum

confossus placidaque ibi demum morte quievit."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Latin is from Virgil's "The Aeneid" - Nisus and Euryalus. I just thought these lines were pretty appropriate to the story. Rough translations below.
> 
> [1] Just as when the purple flower cut down by the plough,  
> sank down dying, or a poppy with its tired neck  
> lowered its head when perchance it is loaded down by the rain.
> 
> [2] Then, pierced through, he threw himself on the lifeless body  
> of his friend, and found peace at last in the calm of death.


End file.
